A Sunset of Regret
by Fluffy Darkness
Summary: "Her lips had tingled, burned. So much sunlight in that caress. And it was glorious." Rumpelstiltskin thinks of Belle and what he has lost. Set at the very end of Skin Deep.


_Disclaimer: I own nothing._

_Takes place just after the queen tells poor Rumpel that Belle is dead._

_Enjoy :)_

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><p>You never think of the repercussions of your actions while you're performing them. Especially when you're riding on an entirely unpleasant high of emotions you haven't experienced in decades. Decades…time flies, or rather, blends together, when you're lonely.<p>

Rage, fear…betrayal. The fact that I could even feel betrayed meant that I trusted her, that she affected me more than I wanted to admit. I'm usually the one to betray people. At least, that's how they see it. I just know my way around a contract. Deals, contracts, loopholes, that's what I know, what I'm good at. The whole true love thing, I'm not good at that, obviously.

Her final words, a tirade really, continue to flash through my mind, phrases that tumble about and demand my utmost attention. The harder I try to ignore them, the louder they shriek. They soften when I listen, her tones a whisper, yet still steely and determined. The tremor in her voice, the sorrow, is always clear.

And I realize that what she said was true.

_This means that it's true love!_

And I told her to shut up. Heh…I thought she was lying, working for the queen and trying to weasel her way into my heart and make me weak. Forgot I had one of those to manipulate, it had never beat so fast as it did when she leaned into me and – stop it. I allowed fear to fuel my rage, the fear that all my doubts had been true, that she didn't truly care for me, that her goal all along had been to find and exploit the monster's weakness.

_You're not a monster._

Get out of my head.

But it must have been so. You can't fake true love. True love can break any curse, even the one that has held me in its clutches since my name appeared on that dagger and I became…this, this monster. I wouldn't have felt the darkness receding if it hadn't been true love. She loved me.

_You could have had happiness._

I knew happiness, so long ago. Happiness had been a boy, a son who loved his papa and believed in him and stood by him when no one else did. It was ripped away from me, and I learned what it was to have it again in the form of a woman whose smiles had been kind, her gestures tender, her laughter genuine, who at times let me forget what I am and made me feel something that I had not felt in such a long time, something I assumed myself no longer capable of feeling…human. And I shunned it. The darkness, the safety, the power, I don't know how to live without it, so long has it been a part of me. I couldn't be weak again…never again. Easier to embrace the familiar darkness, let it embrace me, than tread into dangerous territory where I could lose everything. I am the coward she labeled me to be.

_All you'll have is an empty heart…and a chipped cup._

Get out of my head!

Her voice, I can't rid myself of it, always whispering, giggling. Her face too, that lovely image never abandons me. To think that someone as beautiful as she could see something in me, something redeeming, something worth loving. I'll never understand what it could possibly have been.

However, she was only half right. Empty…she couldn't have been further from the truth. I know emptiness. It shacks up and holds hands with loneliness. But, when she was here, that emptiness wasn't so apparent, so smothering. She lifted the darkness a bit, tearing down curtains and letting sunlight flood more than just the spinning room.

The sunlight no longer seems so bright. It doesn't reach and fill the nooks and crevices anymore. Back to normal, it seems. No, not quite. Not quite as empty as it used to be. Before, there had been nothing, just a numbness broken occasionally by the delight in desperate souls' sufferings, which never lasted long enough. Now, there's this added weight, a mixture of guilt and regret stronger than any I could concoct, purposefully at least, which shows no signs of abating in the slightest. No, my heart is filled to nearly bursting. She loved me, and in return I spurned her…killed her.

The porcelain is cool in my hands. Not like her. She was so warm, the comfortable weight of her in my arms, the heat radiating from her body melting through fabric and into my skin, and my heart raced, almost painful in its intensity. I run my fingers over the cup's broken rim, where her own delicate fingers once caressed with trepidation. I miss her fingers, wrapping around the stem of a rose, tugging on curtains, brushing against my collar, hands, face. I sleep little, but when I do I dream of her and feel those phantom fingers fluttering across my skin when I wake. There was warmth in her eyes, in her voice.

Her lips had tingled, burned. So much sunlight in that caress. And it was glorious.

Now, the warmth has fled, and the sun has set. Forever.

When you're acting on impulse, on feelings of fear, doubt, betrayal, you don't think rationally or consider the tangible proof right in front of you. You mess up. And you'd give anything to go back and make things right. Especially when you know that you killed your happy ending, that it lies dead and buried.

I'm sorry…Belle.


End file.
